


give me one hint of human

by isopodiny



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half-Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person, Stream of Consciousness, everyone on the science team is a sad boy by default and tommy is no exception, introspective, these are your standard daddy issues passed through Alien Google Translate 5 times, tommy feels guilty about his father's involvement in the Incident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24675277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isopodiny/pseuds/isopodiny
Summary: you know lots of things about your dad, but when compared to the things you don’t know about him, they are little more than the pebbles that precede a landslide.
Relationships: Tommy Coolatta & Everyone, Tommy Coolatta & The G-Man
Comments: 6
Kudos: 93





	give me one hint of human

you know lots of things about your dad. his favorite season is spring. his favorite color, peach. he prefers dramedies above all other genres. all his suits are custom made; he can’t stand the scratch of certain materials, or the way the sleeves on ill-made suits brush against his wrists. (you’re the same way.) while he’s transcended the need for food or drink, he takes his coffee with one sugar and one cream. he unravels the secrets of the universe as easily as one pulls a loose thread from a sweater. dogs make him antsy, but he is willing to make a sacrifice for you. he makes a lot of sacrifices, actually. 

what you don’t know, is why he couldn’t make one more.

you know lots of things about your dad, but when compared to the things you don’t know about him, they are little more than the pebbles that precede a landslide. his origins are otherworldly, and so too yours became. typically, adoption doesn’t work that way, but your family is a special case. you don’t know why that is, either. neither do you know his true name, nor do you know if he even possesses one to begin with. his species is unknown. his intentions lean towards the ambiguous side. the abilities he bestowed upon you have yet to be analyzed. (but when your fingers instinctively curled around the handle of a weapon and when you fired shots like you’d been doing this your whole life and when you drank soda the world roared to life around you and when you could see so so so much all at once even if no one else could, you began to suspect.)

you hoard knowledge as a dragon does coins, but there is not a single textbook or manual or handbook or wikipedia page about him. if only you knew more, you could make one. but you don’t, so you can’t.

you don’t know why there are limits to his influence. why the resonance cascade occurred to begin with. why your team could never escape the center of the chaos. why hordes of beasts and men thirsted for your blood. why mister freeman lost his hand. why the gang was scattered to the four winds afterwards. why benrey did  _ that _ , because you  _ know _ he isn’t bad, and you  _ know _ he didn’t want to  _ be bad _ , so something else must have happened.

you don’t know why your dad  _ let _ any of this happen.

he checks all the boxes – unfathomable entity, unspeakable powers, loves you enough to not want to see you hurt. you think he loves you, anyway. he did throw you the best birthday bash of all time at  _ the _ chuck e. cheese™️ entertainment establishment, and he did arrange for the minions to visit you, and he did grant your birthday wishes. he did those things. you had no doubts, no question about that. your dad is capable of many things. he speaks stars into existence. to him, humans are as good as a game of chess, or a marionette on manipulable strings, or some other game or folly that requires an overseer and makes for a cliche comparison, because you have read more than enough literature to know this is an overdone concept.

anyhow, you don’t know where you fit into the equation. you’re not sure you count as human, anymore. you would say it doesn’t matter, but you know better. you’re old enough to. regardless, your dad cares about you. yes. it is so, and let it so be. that isn’t the question. the question is, to what extent? are you more than a mere game, no matter how beloved it is? are you more than a puzzle to be solved, a project to pass the time? another point on the list of things you suspect: your dad has time to spare. small as the comfort is, you know sunkist won’t be lonely after you pass on.

is that not enough, though? that he loves you? possessing the bare minimum of heart and the wealth of power that he does – those are the necessary components, the ones needed to rid the world of black mesa’s tragedy. yet, he never did. heart and power remain unused, bottled up and shoved to the back of the shelf. 

it reminds you of black mesa’s many unfinished projects, now forever lost to beneath earth and rubble. some lost momentum, and therefore lost funding, while others were shoved to the side to make way for other advancements. more important endeavors, management said. we will revive older projects once resources have been freed up, they claimed. and then they didn’t. shelves and pallets and warehouses of materials grew dusty because one person saw it fit to do nothing. no other reason.

whenever you think of this, a selfish pang twists your heart. all he’s given you, and you keep asking for more? you can’t decide whether it’s fair of you to complain. you would, in a heartbeat, trade all your birthdays – not just the parties, the goddamn birthdays, because you would gladly give your remaining days – if it meant your friends had never and would never know a second of pain. can you expect others to do the same? should you? your dad wouldn’t even have to sacrifice that much. a snap of the fingers, maybe, if he wants to be dramatic. (he often does. another thing to add to your short but growing list of dad facts.)

you continue to loop back to the same question – why didn’t he lift a finger to help – but it’s for a good reason. you don’t think you will be able to look at your dad in the same way ever again. you can’t reconcile with his actions, or lack thereof. you can’t turn back the clock and convince him to change his mind. never has he been one to renege on his intentions.

you can’t change the fact that you made the perilous trek through black mesa. you can’t rid everyone of their paralyzing, suffocating memories. you can’t mend relationships shattered beyond belief. you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. maybe that’s why you offer to babysit joshua every chance you get so mister freeman can have a break, or you game with benrey until you can’t keep your eyes open, or you supply bubby with everything he requires to pursue his pyromaniac tendencies, or you work out with doctor coomer up till the moment your knees make the executive decision to cease functioning.

by definition, you cannot atone for your dad’s doings. that doesn’t stop you from trying.


End file.
